What’s on the menu at fast food restaurants lately? Ironically enough, the answer increasingly is… “health food!” Even more incongruous, many fast food joints are advertising their food for weight loss. Healthy weight loss food at Taco Bell and McDonalds? Is this a positive move to be applauded, is it a big corporate money grab or is it a double edged sword? Here’s my two cents:

Almost everyone remembers the Jared weight loss campaign for Subway. He was the guy who lost 245 pounds during which time he ate at Subway regularly. He simply picked the lower calorie items on the menu. Jared later became a spokesperson for Subway in their nationwide advertising campaigns which became known as the Subway Diet.

During that campaign, Subway sales doubled to 8.2 billion. How much the increase came from the weight loss ads is unknown, but there’s little doubt that using weight loss as a marketing platform was a boon for Subway.

Subway has since moved on to $5 footlong subs, which worked wonders for their bottom line in the recent recession. But other fast food chains picked up the weight loss torch where subway left off.

The most recent talk of the blogosphere this year is the Taco Bell drive through diet. With its own dedicated website and advertising campaign, the drive through diet flaunts their own “Jared”: Christine!

The restaurant seems to be walking on FTC-strewn egg… er… taco shells, being very conservative with their claims. They say Christine’s results aren’t typical, she lost the weight (54 lbs) over 2 years by reducing her calories to 1250 a day, and part of her success was simply from choosing Taco Bell’s new lower calorie “Fresco” items.

These include “7 diet items with 150 to 240 calories and under 9 grams of fat.” For example, there’s a chicken soft taco with only 170 calories, 4 grams of fat, 22 grams of carbs and 12 grams of protein.

By swapping some of these items with their regular (and higher calorie) menu items, you’d take in fewer calories and less fat. If all else remained equal, this could help you lose weight. For people who refuse to give up eating at fast food restaurants, this is arguably a positive thing.

Take my brother for example, He’s not a total junk food junkie, thanks partly to my influence and the influence of our parents. I have vague memories of my health-nut mom feeding us wheat germ and cod liver oil (by the spoonful) when we were candy-munching kids in California. She once tried to feed us eggplant pizza as a sneaky way to get us to eat vegetables. That ploy didn’t work – we were young but we weren’t stupid – we knew it wasn’t Pizza Hut! (I hate eggplant to this day).

Many years ago, I even managed to get my brother going to the gym and whaddya know, he’s been going ever since. But despite the positive role models he has, left to his own devices, he WILL make a beeline to Taco Bell and McDonalds and so will the friends he hangs out with.

I went to McDonalds with him a few months ago (I was trapped in the car with no choice), and he was about to order a bacon cheeseburger. I glanced at the menu and said, “That’s 790 calories!” I glanced down at his belly, then continued, “Look, they have chicken wraps. Why don’t you have one of those?” Without questioning me he said, “Ok,” apparently happy just to get any McDonalds fix. I couldn’t talk him out of the soda, but I’m working on it okay? At least I got him to stop getting refills.

Right there at the counter they had the nutrition information sheets:

McDonald’s honey mustard grilled chicken wrap: 260 calories, 9 grams fat, 27 grams of carbs, 18 grams of protein.

That saved him 530 calories. Am I happy there is something with 260 calories on the menu and not just 700 calories across the board? Absolutely. And DO I applaud the fast food restaurants for offering lower calorie choices? You bet, although I’d like to see more one-ingredient choices like baked potatoes, baked sweet potatoes and whole fruit…plus some decent salads).

The big mistake almost everyone is making, even fitness and nutrition professionals who have been blogging about this lately, is that while they are agreeing that it’s nice to have low calorie items on the menu (especially with calories posted), they are calling these low calorie fast food items “healthy choices.”

Some journalists and bloggers have jumped into the fray and cleverly countered…

“These new fast food menu items are NOT healthy, they’re only ‘healthi-ER.’”

I think they are both mistaken.

This food is not healthy nor is it healthier. It’s only lower in calories.

The only way you could say these lower calorie fast food items are healthier choices is in the sense that they can help to reduce total daily caloric intake, if all else remains equal. That could help people lose weight and if they lose weight the weight loss could improve their health. Eating smaller portions of refined carbohydrates or sugars might also be healthier, from a glycemic point of view.

But what if your definition of healthy food is dependent on nutrition, nutrient density and absence of artificial ingredients?

Let’s take a look at that very low calorie chicken wrap. Do you really think it’s healthier just because it’s got 1/3 the calories of a bacon cheeseburger?

Here’s the ingredients straight from McDonald’s website:

McDonald’s Grilled Chicken Breast Filet (wrap): Chicken breast filets with rib meat, water, seasoning (salt, sugar, food starch-modified, maltodextrin, spices, dextrose, autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed [corn gluten, soy, wheat gluten] proteins, garlic powder, paprika, chicken fat, chicken broth, natural flavors (plant and animal source), caramel color, polysorbate 80, xanthan gum, onion powder, extractives of paprika), modified potato starch, and sodium phosphates. CONTAINS: SOY AND WHEAT. Prepared with Liquid Margarine: Liquid soybean oil, water, partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils, salt, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, soy lecithin, mono- and diglycerides, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preservative), artificial flavor, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene (color). (and don’t forget the 800 mg of sodium).

HOLY CRAP! Shouldn’t chicken breast be just one ingredient… chicken breast?! Isn’t that generally what healthy, whole food is – one ingredient?

This is not food. It’s more like what Michael Pollan would call an “edible food-like substance.”

What about the honey mustard sauce? First ingredient after water is… SUGAR!

The flour tortilla ingredients? Enriched bleached wheat flour, also made with vegetable shortening (may contain one or more of the following: hydrogenated soybean oil, soybean oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, hydrogenated cottonseed oil with mono- and diglycerides added), contains 2% or less of the following: sugar, leavening (sodium aluminum sulfate, calcium sulfate, sodium phosphate, baking soda, corn starch, monocalcium phosphate), salt, wheat gluten, dough conditioners, sodium metabisulfite, distilled monoglycerides.

Trans fats? Sugar? Aluminum? Stuff you can’t pronounce and have to look up to find out it’s preservatives and disinfectants?

Don’t confuse the issues: weight loss and health…. Calories and nutrition. There IS a difference!

This my friends, makes “healthy” fast food a double edged sword.

There are people I care about, not just my clients, but my own family, and I want the best for them all. But my brother, and many other people, aren’t going to completely give up fast food. If I can get him to make better bad choices that could help him keep his weight under control. If that works, then I’m pleased that the fast food restaurants have such choices to offer.

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But if you wanted to make a good choice – a healthy choice – you’d forget about “driving through” anywhere on a daily basis, and you’d save the junk for your planned cheat meals (although, frankly, I can think of far better ways to spend my “free” calories).

The Subway diet, the Drive Through diet, The Cookie Diet, Kentucky grilled chicken or the Weight Watchers approved McDonalds menu (yes its true, what a pair that is!) Don’t kid yourself – it’s not only not healthy, it’s not healthier – it’s lower calorie junk food.

“Welcome to our restaurant sir. Would you like a large plate of dog poo or a small plate of dog poo?”

“No thank you, I will take neither. No matter what the serving size, crap is still crap.”

The Double-Edged Sword of “Healthy” Fast Food
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

How they lost 100 lbs or more was the subject of a recent Burn the Fat newsletter. Email flooded in after that, from readers who were inspired by hearing about these huge body fat losses and before/after transformations. I was inspired too. But sometimes I think we focus too much on the almighty scale and body fat percentage and forget about something even more important…

Your Health.

Health is what psychologist Abraham Maslow called a deficiency need, which means that when you’ve lost it, getting it back is the only thing in the world that matters.

Unfortunately, two corollaries to this theory of human motivation are:

1. Most people won’t lift a finger to improve their health until something bad happens (they have to hit “rock bottom” to change), and

2. When you’ve got your health, you tend to take it for granted.

That’s why we need constant reminders to keep our focus on health and keep health right on top of our list of life values.

As you remind yourself of the importance of your health every day, it also pays to consider how you define it.

Fitness and transformation icon Shawn Phillips, author of Strength for Life, says that if your definition of health is merely the absence of disease, then subconsciously, the mere absence of disease means you’ve achieved your “goal.”

Therefore, you feel no motivation and no need to move above and beyond that and strive towards…

“A life of ABUNDANT energy, vitality and strength.”

[NOTE: Shawn has agreed to be a guest on an upcoming Burn the Fat interview or podcast, so we will explore this in more detail soon… and besides, don’t you want to know how he got those famous ABS?]

We NEED these reminders.

That’s why I get such a thrill when people send me success stories that are not just about the scale and body fat percentage, but ALSO about health and what that new-found health has done for a person’s life.

A Before and After Success Story You Don’t See Every Day (But Should)

For example, this success story comes from Burn the Fat reader Craig B:

“Tom, I visited my Dr. today and he was stunned at the change in my blood results. Check out this before and after:

• Cholesterol/Total

232 before
121 after

• Triglycerides

185 before
87 after

• HDL (good cholesterol)

32 before
41 after

• VLDL (bad cholesterol)

40 before
17 after

• Total cholesterol/HDL ratio

5.63 before
3.0 after

(I dropped from 2X average risk to less than HALF average risk!)

• TSH

4.8 before
2.1 after

• CRP

3.90 before
1.02 after

(I moved from High risk to Low risk.)

I have burned 34lbs of fat and put on 7lbs of lean muscle.

I have moved from 40% body fat to 32.9% (My scale may be off, but I am hoping to verify those body fat % measurements with a dunk test during my next visit to S.F. or Portland.)

The doctor, in short, was blown away with the results.

I have tried Atkins, Protein Power, Lindora (medical weight control), each of these over the years and probably too many others to mention. Never have I felt this empowered and well armed with information and insight.

When I was not getting the results the math would have me believe, I had the tools and community support to explain what Beta Blockers do to cardio and metabolism then took that insight to my doctor and he has reduced and changed those meds.

I am now off statins all together as of today!

I have a ways to go to reach my final goal of 10% body fat, but I have the tools and I can accomplish it. I am, as you suggested, putting the date when I achieve it in pencil, but the 10% BF is in ink. I will get there.

It is amazing how empowering feeling good and controlling your blood chemistry through nourishment (both physiological and physical) and being consistent with the hard work in the gym and changing to a new lifestyle.

Thanks Tom – you are helping a lot of people, clearly. I will be telling anyone about the book and Burn the Fat website that has any questions or looking for answers.”

Gaining muscle and losing fat is nice, but what could be better than gaining muscle, losing fat AND feeling your health, energy and vitality skyrocket!

As Craig shows us, tracking your health improvements, not just what you weigh, gives you another source of tremendous motivation and a feeling of empowerment.

You realize that you are in control of your body. You are the maker and master.

One final thought: It’s a misconception that the “bodybuilding” lifestyle is in some way not healthy or doesn’t dramatically IMPROVE your health

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Nothing could be further from the truth, as Craig’s results prove. Craig was not just doing aerobics – he was pumping iron and feeding the muscle, not starving himself.

If you do ANY kind of resistance training, you ARE a “body-builder” and a “health-builder.”

When you do NATURAL bodybuilding, it’s about looking great AND getting healthier. That’s how I do it – naturally – and that’s how I encourage others to do it in my Burn the Fat programs.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto,
Author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle

It’s Not About The Body Fat
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

I got an email today from a reader who was told by a fairly prominent doctor/author that aerobics and running will “kill you” (that was more or less the gist of it). As a result, you should avoid aerobics like the plague, says this MD. Since I’ve tolerated enough “steady state cardio is dead” and “aerobics doesn’t work” nonsense over the last few years, despite the success stories I keep churning out that clearly show otherwise, (not to mention my own bodybuilding success, which includes regular cardio), I thought I should not only answer my reader, but also make this the topic for today’s blog to share with all of our readers.

Here’s the “killer cardio” question and my response:

BURN THE FAT READER EMAIL:

Tom, your articles are great. Here’s the problem. More runners die from sudden heart attack and stroke than any other form of exercise on the planet.

It’s because nothing is more foreign to human beings than getting their heart rate up and keeping it there for long periods of time.

Recent studies have shown that while there are benefits to aerobics, (like weight loss), in the long term, statistics show a direct increase in heart disease.

Part of the reason for this is that in an effort to adapt to the unnatural demands being put on the body, to economize, the heart and lungs actually shrink.

Just look at the long list of joint, bone, and muscle injuries that come along with running (it’s right there in the magazines).

As I know you know, a serious weight lifter, if he’s paying attention to form, should almost never suffer injury from weight training. The same is true for the following:

Instead of unnatural, self-abusive aerobics, the best way to actually increase heart and lung capacity and size is to go beyond aerobics. In short, spurts of intense exercise, such as wind-sprints, you move past your ability to produce ATP with oxygen as fast as you are using it, causing your muscles to become ATP depleted.

That’s the point at which your anaerobic energy system kicks in. This is also known as crossing your aerobic threshold.

Burst training, sprints, whatever you want to call it, it shouldn’t be done in addition to aerobics, it should be done in place of aerobics.

Incidentally, I am not saying that one shouldn’t walk, jog, bicycle, swim, etc, just be reasonable.

I had a heart condition that has been totally alleviated. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday of each week, I go through a 45 minute weight training session, followed by a 20 minutes of the interval program.

Check it out, I think this sort of thing would be a great addition to your already good program.

-Jeff

RESPONSE:

While I agree with much of what you said about the benefits of intense “burst” exercise, I find the anti running and anti aerobics arguments promoted by these “experts” to be horribly inflexible, dogmatic and, unlike what you suggested, totally UNreasonable.

Based on the science, I also find the argument that traditional cardio or aerobics is “unhealthy” to be wholly unconvincing. That doctor isn’t giving the full picture.

I subscribe to many sports medicine and exercise science journals and I’ve certainly seen research papers looking at sudden death in elite runners, etc. But most of them were case studies and epidemiology. Believe me, there’s another side to the story.

Marathon running is a highly publicized sport, and the media loves bad news, so the oxymoron of a runner dying of a heart attack makes a great story, which means greater visibility for what is actually a very rare occurrence.

It’s also easy to cherry pick case studies on just about anything to start up a big scare.

This comes from the American Journal of Cardiology:

“The overall prevalence of sudden cardiac death during the marathon was only 0.002%, strikingly lower than for several other variables of risk for premature death calculated for the general U.S. population.”

Although highly trained athletes such as marathon runners may harbor underlying and potentially lethal cardiovascular disease, the risk for sudden cardiac death associated with such intense physical effort was exceedingly small.”

I also find comparing serious endurance athletes pushing their physical limits to regular cardio for general fitness training to be an inappropriate comparison.

What does a rare cardiac event during a 26 mile run have to do with you doing 30 or 45 minutes of jogging or me doing 40 minutes of moderate work on the stairmaster to get cut for a bodybuilding contest?

Even sillier are the people who keep using the late marathon runner and running author Jim Fixx as an example of anything but a guy who had a genetic predisposition for heart disease (gun was loaded). Rumor has it he was a long time smoker too.

I know some bodybuilders and weight lifters who died of heart attacks in the gym. Should we argue against against weight lifting too? Should we just play it safe and stay on the couch? Freak incidents happen and heredity is factor.

Please note, I’m saying all this as a strength/physique athlete (bodybuilder), who understands full well that excessive aerobics is counterproductive to my goals and that weight training is priority #1.

But in the right amounts, balanced with proper recovery (as you said, “reasonable”) regular cardio can be instrumental in helping me lower my body fat and it can benefit you in many other ways, physically and mentally.

There are MANY ways to do cardio and all of them have their place at certain times for certain people.

What you’re talking about with sprints or burst training is also known as High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT for short.

HIIT can be a great way to get cardiovascular conditioning and burn a lot of calories in a very time efficient manner.

Furthermore, a paper just published recently in the ACSM’s Exercise and Sport Sciences Review (July 2009) discussed the research suggesting that intense aerobic interval training provides greater benefits for the heart than low or moderate intensity exercise.

The benefits discussed included:

• Increased maximal oxygen uptake
• Improved heart muscle contractile function
• Improved heart muscle calcium handling
• reduced cardiac dysfunction in metabolic syndrome
• Reversed pathological cardiac hypertrophy
• Increased physiological hypertrophy of the heart muscle
• Overall: improved quality of life and length of life by avoiding fatal heart attacks.

This is NOT an argument AGAINST regular cardio, it is evidence in favor of intense cardio.

I like HIIT and intense types of cardio!I don’t need to add it to my program because it’s already a part of it.

My first book about fat loss, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle was first published in 2002 and I recommended HIIT way back then – as well as regular cardio, not one or the other. I Still do!

There were also people promoting HIIT long before me. It’s not any revolutionary idea – people just keep putting new names and spins on it for marketing.

The problem is, to argue in favor of HIIT should not be construed as arguing against conventional cardio or aerobics.

Many of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models used slow, steady state cardio exclusively prior to competitions and they got ripped right down to the six pack abs. They didn’t die of a heart attack and they didn’t lose muscle either.

In fact, many bodybuilders opt for low intensity cardio specifically for muscle retention when they get to the tail end of contest prep where body fat stores are getting low and food intake is low. Adding more high intensity training on top of all the weight training is often catabolic in that caloric deficit situation.

Listen, HIIT and other types of intense cardio are great. It’s time efficient, making it ideal for the busy person, and its very effective for both fat loss and cardiovascular conditioning. It’s also more engaging, as many people find longer, slower sessions of cardio boring.

If you have a history of heart disease and you smoke like a chimney and at the same time you decide you want to take up marathon running, ok, I’ll concede to some caution.

But, “Aerobics is going to kill you!”??????

GIVE ME A BREAK!

Perfect marketing hook for a cultish “HIIT is the only way” type of program… little more.

Bottom line: sure, do your HIIT, do your sprints, do your Tabatas….

OR…

Do your regular steady state aerobics or running too…

Or, do a little bit of everything! I do.

Be sure weight training is your foremost training priority and then do whatever type of cardio you enjoy and whatever type gets you the best results.

If you like to run, then RUN, and tell the “experts” who say otherwise to BUZZ OFF and take their sensationalistic journalism and marketing with them!

Tom Venuto,
Author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle

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PS I suspect I received this question as I recently published an article telling my story of how I got ripped the first time by running. If you didn’t see that, its a pretty interesting story.

PPS I also previously wrote about HIIT in detail. I was so sick of hearing about these “4 minute workouts that burn fat”. Gimme a ANOTHER friggen break! On one hand, short sprints are very effective for cardio improvements – It’s quite remarkable actually how much cardio-respiratory fitness you can develop from very short intense workouts; that’s legit – but the claims of super short intense workouts and fast FAT LOSS, are completely bogus. You just don’t burn enough calories. I’ll come back to that in an upcoming newsletter. Stay tuned!

The Doctor Says, “Aerobics Will Kill You!”
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

High intensity interval training can be done in a variety of different ways. Here’s a wickedly-effective type of interval training: it requires no machines or fancy equipment, you can do it outside in the sunshine and fresh air, it develops killer conditioning, carves out legs like a sprinter, and burns calories at an accelerated rate…

In recent Burn The Fat Blog posts about running/aerobics and high intensity interval training, as well as in my Fat loss books, I’ve written about how you can integrate both traditional steady state cardio as well as high intensity interval training into your training program for optimal body composition improvement, health and increased fitness – you don’t have to choose one form of cardio or the other. In fact, settling into dogmatic views about cardio will only limit you.

Traditional steady state cardio is pretty much self-explanatory and intuitive. But many people are still confused about the best way to do interval training.

An Insanely Effective Way To Do Interval Cardio

I’m not sure if there is a single best way to do intervals because there are so many choices and everyone is different in their goals, interests and personal preferences, so “best” is a relative thing. But let me give you one of my personal favorites that is breathtakingly effective:

Stair sprinting!

Your typical interval workout in the gym might be on a stationary cycle, treadmill or stairclimber with short 30-60 second bursts of high speed and/or resistance, followed by a 60-120 second period of low intensity recovery. That’s usually a 1:1 or 1:2 work to recovery interval. You then rinse and repeat for the desired number of intervals, usually between 6 and 12.

I sometimes have access to a great set of university stadium steps with a straight shot right up – 52 steps.

Sprinting it takes about 10 seconds or so, walking down about 30 seconds. Those are short intervals with a 1:3 work to recovery interval ratio. That wasn’t by design, it just happens to be how long it takes to run up and walk down that particular flight of stairs, but co-incidentally, that fits within common recommendations for short sprint-style intervals.

I make sure I’m warmed up first, I usually start with a couple flights up at a slow jog then a run, before sprinting, usually 10-12 rounds.

Even if you jog/run instead of sprint, (or pause briefly at the bottom of the stairs), when you do the math, you can figure that this usually doesn’t take more than 10-12 minutes.

Why do I like stadium step sprinting?

1. Stair sprinting is a time saver. Like other forms of interval training, it’s entirely possible to get as much if not more cardiovascular conditioning in 10-15 minutes than you’d get from a much longer session of slower cardio (depending on the intensity and effort levels).

2. Stair sprinting is engaging. Many people get bored doing long slow to medium intensity cardio sessions. This is a great way to break up the monotony of traditional cardio workouts. Even though it’s tough, it’s actually kind of fun.

3. Stair sprinting is incredible for leg development. As a bodybuilder, I like to look at all types of training not only in terms of conditioning, fat loss and health, but also whether they will add or detract from the physique. I find that brief but intense stair workouts are amazing for leg development – quads, hamstrings, glutes and even your calves. In fact, I started training on the stairs more than 20 years ago, and I always considered it as much if not more of a leg workout than anything else.

4. Stair sprinting can be done outside. If you have access to stadium steps, as opposed to just a stairwell, you can enjoy the sun and fresh air.

How to integrate stair running into your training program

If you’re an overachiever type, you might be tempted to do these sprint workouts in addition to your current strength training and cardio workload.

However, keep in mind that intensity and duration are inversely proportional. When you do high intensity cardio or all out sprints, you are condensing more work into less time. That means the best part is, you can do a brief but intense stair workout instead of one of your long cardio sessions rather than in addition to them.

Recommendation: Start with one session per week, then progress to two if you choose. You can do traditional cardio the other days of the week if you want or need additional calorie-burning. Lower intensity cardio in between weight training and interval workouts can also serve as active recovery.

Not everyone has access to a full flight of stadium steps, as you might find at a local University. Running flights of stairs in a high rise is another effective and no-cost way to train on stairs. Although you can’t truly sprint with twists and turns on each floor, you canjog/run.

No stairs? Hills will get the job done too and they may provide you with more flexibility in the length/duration of your intervals. I’ve found some big hills at just the right grade of incline that I can do 30-45 second runs up, with about 90-120 seconds walk down. Grassy hills are nice, when available, as they spare you some of the impact from running on the concrete.

Sprinting up stairs is not for everyone. If you have a history of health problems or orthopedic issues, check with your doctor before doing any kind of high intensity training and of course, don’t train through the pain of injury. If you are significantly overweight, it may be a challenge just to walk up stairs, let alone run up, not to mention it might create undue stress on your joints. But as you get lighter and fitter, it’s a challenge you might slowly work toward.

Be sure to build up gradually and adjust the workout based on your current health and fitness level. You could start with as few as 4-6 rounds and build up from there. You can also start with jogging up the stairs, then progress to running, then move to sprints. Be sure you are fully prepared and warmed up before attempting all out sprints as sprinting when unprepared is a notorious source of hamstring pulls.

Some coaches believe that running uphill is safer than sprinting flat surfaces. Writing for Staley Training.com, Coach Steven Morris says, “Another great reason to hill sprint: even an athlete with horrendous running form will be safe running hills. This is simply because the hill does NOT allow the athlete to over-stride nor does it allow them to reach top speed, both major factors in hamstring injuries.”

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If you’re healthy and already fit, try this advanced interval workout and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results!

In upcoming blog posts, We’ll look at other forms of interval training and scrutinize some of the claims about cardiovascular conditioning versus fat loss that can be achieved with very brief but very intense cardio, plus how you might incorporate them into a comprehensive training and nutrition program for fat loss.

An Insanely Effective Type of Interval Training
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

Many of the previous studies on HIIT used ALL-OUT intervals on a specialized cycle ergometer, pedaling against a high resistance.

This type of training takes a high level of commitment and motivation and can result in feelings of severe discomfort and even nausea.

One of my colleagues mentioned in our Burn the Fat Forums that he remembers exercise physiology class in college where they did all out cycle ergometer interval sprint testing and nearly everyone either puked or passed out.

The Tabata protocol for example, is a brief but brutal 4 minute HIIT workout often spoken of by trainers and trainees alike with both appreciation and dread. It’s no walk in the park.

The truth is, some HIIT protocols which have been tested in the lab to produce big improvements in cardiovascular function and conditioning in a short period of time, may not be practical or safe, especially for beginners, obese or older adults.

In this new study out of McMaster University, a HIIT protocol that was more practical and attainable for the general population was tested to see how the results would compare to the more “brutal” very short, but extremely intense types of HIIT.

Here’s what the new HIIT protocol looked like:

• Study duration: 2 weeks
• Frequency: 3 sessions per week (mon, wed, fri)
• Work intervals: 60 seconds @ constant load
• Intensity Work intervals: “high intensity cycling at a workload that corresponded to the peak power achieved at the end of the ramp VO2peak test (355 +/- 10W)”
• Recovery intervals: 75 seconds
• Intensity Recovery Intervals: Low intensity cycling at 30W”
• Rounds: 8-12 intervals
• Progression: 8 intervals 1st two workouts, 10 intervals second two workouts, 12 intervals last 2 workouts.
• Warm up: 3 min:
• Duration of work intervals: 8-12 minutes
• Total time spent: 21-29 minutes.

Results: In just 2 weeks, there were significant improvements in functional exercise performance and skeletal muscle adaptations (mitochondrial biogenesis). Subjects did not report any dizziness, nausea, light headedness that is often reported with all-out intervals.

They concluded that HIIT does not have to be all-out to produce significant fitness improvements and yet the total weekly time investment could remain under 1 hour.

On a personal note, I REALLY like this kind of interval training: 60 second work intervals repeated 8-12 times. Here’s why:

Body composition was not measured in this study, but I believe that enough energy expenditure can be achieved with 20-30 minutes of this style of interval training to make significant body comp improvements in addition to all the cardiovascular conditioning improvements.

That’s another problem with super-brief and super intense HIIT programs: The cardio and heart benefits are amazing, but you can only burn so many calories per minute, no matter how intensely you work. To call a 4-minute workout a “good fat burner” in the absolute sense is ridiculous.

Somewhere in between long duration slow/moderate steady state cardio and super short super-intense HIIT lies a sweet spot for fat-burning benefits… a place where intensity X duration yield an optimal total calorie expenditure at a reasonable time investment. Perhaps this 20-30 minute HIIT workout is it?

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If you’ve read any of my previous posts on cardio, you’ll know that I’m not against steady state cardio, walking or even light recreational exercise and miscellaneous activity as part of a fat loss program. All activity counts towards your total daily energy expenditure, and in fact, the little things often add up during the day more than you would imagine (just look up N.E.A.T. and see what you find).

But for your formal “cardio training” sessions, if you’re going to use traditional cardio modes (stationary cycle, etc) and if your goal includes fat burning, and if your time is limited, this type of HIIT is a great choice and you can now say it is research proven…

Not to mention… the excuse, “I don’t have enough time” has been officially busted!

A Practical Model For High Intensity Interval Training
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

QUESTION: Hello Tom, I’ve been doing BFL for the past year, and did well at first, losing 3 dress sizes and 5% body fat, but then I totally hit a plateau and have had no more results since December. I’m wondering if I’ve been strict enough with my eating

I bought your ebook, Burn The Fat, and I’m very excited about the information I’ve read so far, but I need some clarification about the eating part.

I’ve been eating according to the BFL philosophy with one “cheat” day per week. What I’m reading in your Burn The Fat program is instead, to allow myself a couple of “cheat” meals any time during the week or on the weekend, but not to take an entire day off the program.

However, in your list of foods that turn to fat, you mention that certain foods should only be eaten very rarely. Does that mean that they shouldn’t even be eaten at a weekly cheat meal? I can live with that, but then, what constitutes a “cheat” meal, (for example, if my favorite hash browns aren’t allowed?

I know you get a billion emails, but I would really appreciate it if you have time to answer.

Kind regards,
Kathleen

ANSWER: It’s not productive in the long term to totally deprive yourself of foods you enjoy. What you have to do is find a sensible way to work even your most “sinful” favorite foods into your diet, but do it in an amount and frequency that doesn’t set you back or sabotage your progress. This can be done by allowing yourself some “cheat meals” (some people call them “free meals” or “reward meals.”)

One really good way to look at the “cheat meals” concept is in terms of “compliance,” which means, what percentage of your meals are following the guidelines of the program and what percentage are off the program.

Too many meals or days off the program and your results are compromised. Too many days in a row eating nothing but “rabbit food” and you go crazy with cravings, right?

How much you need to comply (stick with) your program varies from person to person. It depends a lot on how ambitious your goals are and on how responsive your body is to nutrition and exercise.

When making your decision, keep in mind we all have different genetics and body types, which is something I discuss in great detail in chapter 5 of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (www.burnthefat.com).

Are you a carb-tolerant mesomorph who gains muscle easily and loses fat easily or are you a carb-sensitive endomorph who gains fat easily? Depending on the answer, your diet program may need to be more or less strict than others.

Don’t compare yourself to others – you have to get to know your own body type. Some people can “Get away with” more cheat meals and still make progress (Yeah, I hate them too!)

Unless you’re a competitor in physique sports like bodybuilding, fitness or figure, or you’re getting ready for some type of transformation challenge or photo shoot, I suggest at least 90% compliance.

Whether you adjust your level of compliance above 90% (get more “strict”) or below 90% (get more lenient), depends how far away or close you are from achieving your goals, and most importantly, on what kind of results you’re getting each week.

If you’re complying 90% of the time, and you are getting awesome results, you don’t have to change a thing, and you may be able to loosen up your diet a little. I know some people who are definitely only “on the program” 80% or 85% of the time and they look great.

90% compliance means you are following healthy nutritious, fat burning eating guidelines 9 meals out of 10. If you’re eating small frequent meals like the burn the fat program suggests, that’s 5 small meals a day X 7 days a week = 35 meals. 90% compliance means about 31-32 of those meals are spot-on! The other 3 or 4 are for you to enjoy special occasions, reward yourself, and live a little.

If you’re like most people, and you simply want to drop a few pounds, trim a few inches off your waistline and look better in shorts or in a swimsuit for summer, then 100% compliance is unrealistic AND unnecessary. 90% compliance is more realistic as a lifesytle, while being strict enough for most people to get results.

On the other hand, if you had a very ambitious goal like preparing for a figure or fitness competition and you thought you had to reach at least 12 or 13% body fat (which is very low for women), and you knew you would be onstage with judges looking at every inch of your body in a teeny bikini (paying very close attention to whether anything on your butt and thighs was “jiggling”), then you would want to be as strict as possible during the pre contest diet period (100% compliance or very close to it).

Keep in mind also, that this is a competitive situation and every time you “cheat” and your competitors don’t cheat, you decrease your probability of placing high in the contests.

Unless you have a competitive physique goal like this, however, then total deprivation of pleasure foods or cheat meals (100% compliance), is not necessary because you always tend to crave what you cannot have. That’s a binge waiting to happen.

I prefer this 90 or 95% compliance approach over the “entire day of cheating” approach, because I have seen people use the term “cheat day” pretty darn loosely (basically making it the equivalent of BINGE DAY), and they do a lot of damage in terms of setting their progress back.

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They end up frantically playing “catch up” for the better half of the following week with punishing extra exercise and dietary deprivation. Slow and steady is better than binge and punish don’t you agree?

Allow yourself some leeway. Enjoy food. Enjoy life. Have your pizza, or chocoloate or your hash browns or whatever makes your stomach happy. It will help, not hurt in the long run. Just be sure to be mindful of your calorie limits, and when you say you are going to comply 90% of the time, then keep your promise to yourself and comply!

For more information about dieting for fat loss, visit: www.BurnTheFat.com

Diet Compliance vs. Cheating – How Strict Should You Be?
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

QUESTION: Dear Tom: I’ve seen quite a few diet books lately that are based on the color of the foods you eat, including the rainbow diet, the color diet and the “color code” (sounds like the Da Vinci code, LOL!) Anyway, I’ve been reading your newsletters for a long time and I know how you feel about diet pills, books and gimmicks and I was wondering what you thought about these programs. Is it just another gimmick?

ANSWER: Based on the clever titles, it might be tempting to dismiss these programs as gimmicks, and in fact when your weekly menus are literally “color coded,” it might seem that the diet book authors are just scrambling for a new hook or premise on which to base an entire eating program.

I have not read any of those books you mentioned yet, so I can’t comment on any of them specifically. However, as “gimmicky” as eating from every color in the rainbow may sound at first, there is some very legitimate and scientific evidence that this is a great idea.

We are often given the advice to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables (which have a variety of different colors). Good advice of course; even common sense would tell us that. However, “eat a lot of fruits and vegetables”is vague advice because it could mean eating only apples and broccoli (red and green), and nothing else, but eating “a lot” of them. To take that advice to the next level, a better recommendation would be to eat a WIDE VARIETY of fruits and vegetables (not just “a lot”).

Even “wide variety” is not really defined. What is a wide variety? Did you know that there are hundreds of different types of fruits and veggies? To make an even greater distinction, you could begin to sort your fruits and vegetables by color and eat a wide variety every day (at least 5 to 9 servings) and an even wider variety spread over the span of each week.

Why would you go to all the trouble? Well, each various food color is indicative of the phytonutrients and other healthful nutritional compounds found within these foods. According to the textbook Sports & Exercise Nutrition by Katch, Katch & McArdle), over 4000 phytochemicals have been identified, and 150 of them have been studied in detail.

By definition, phytonutrients (also called phytochemicals) are naturally occurring, health promoting compounds found in the plant kingdom. There has been much research on the functional properties of these compounds, proving that they play important and diverse roles in maintaining your health and protecting you from disease.

Foods such as tomatoes (red), carrots (orange), broccoli (green), blueberries (blue) all contain important phytochemicals that play specific roles in health and disease prevention. Onions, whole grains, herbs, spices and other foods also contain their own special types of protective phytochemicals.

Here are some of the phytochemicals and naturally health-promoting compounds and the foods they correspond to:

FLAVONOIDS (quercitin, kaempferol, myricetin, catechins)
Fruits
Vegetables
Berries
Citrus fruits
Onions
Purple grapes
Tea

CAROTENOIDS (luten, lycopene, zeaxanthin, a-carotene, b-carotene)
Carrots
Tomatoes
Cantaloupe Apricots

GLUCOSINOLATES (glucobrassicin, isothiocyanates, indoles)
Cruciferous vegetables
Broccoli
Brussel sprouts
Cabbage

SULFIDES (allium compounds, dithiolthiones)
Onions
Garlic
Leeks
scallions

Each of these compounds has a health promoting role in the body ranging from antioxidant activity to cancer protection. There is much more going on here than just building muscle and shedding body fat. Eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and other natural foods has major health and quality of life implications.

It’s great news to know how much control we can take over our health and physical fitness simply with proper food choices (and proper exercise). The only thing about these discoveries that saddens and disappoints me is that it seems each time our scientists discover something, such as lycopene in tomatoes for example, someone wants to put it in a bottle and sell it to us. (Why not just go to the source and eat the tomatoes???)

I believe in an intelligent creator, and I believe that the creator of our bodies and this universe we live in, knew exactly what he was doing when he created the marvelous diversity of plants and animals that comprise our food supply. Although it may be prudent in this modern industrial age to take a multi vitamin/mineral supplement and maybe an essential fatty acid supplement for “nutritional insurance,” everything you need can be found in your food.

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If you think about what the discovery of all these naturally occurring compounds really means, you will have to agree that food truly is the most powerful drug. Combine that with recent discoveries in physiology and psychoneoruoimmunology proving that our bodies are their own self-regulating natural pharmacies, and you also have to agree that the natural way is the best way.

In any case, it’s definitely not enough to think only in terms of calories and macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats). Energy needs and macronutrient needs are important, but also think about your nutrition in terms of a wide variety of natural foods, and that includes a wide variety of colors.

For more information about the all natural way to fat loss and better health, read about the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program at www.BurnTheFat.com

What Color Is Your Diet
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

QUESTION: Tom, what about alcohol? How does that fit into your burning fat program? I am not talking binge drinking, just one or two a day.

John

ANSWER: Hi John. A couple drinks on the weekend and or on special ocassions probably won’t have any major impact on your fat loss results (although I would encourage you to consider the mindset that EVERYTHING you do either helps or hurts).

A drink or two on ocassion is a part of enjoying life for many people, and it’s important to find lifestyle balance for the sake of your long term happiness and success.

However, I do not recommend drinking every day.

“A couple every day” adds a LOT of extra calories to your daily diet. If you’re talking about two 150-calorie beers, thats 300 calories extra a day or 2100 extra calories a week.

Multiply that out for a year and you have 109,200 extra calories! WOW! That’s potentially 31.2 pounds of fat in a year.

If you DO account for the calories in those drinks, then you have another conundrum – the alcohol calories displace good valuable food calories…

Drinking gives you empty alcohol calories with virtually no nutritional value (and some negative value in more way than one), while pushing out important vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, fiber and other good stuff.

Alcohol also inhibits fat burning. While your liver is busy metabolizing alcohol, it puts your fat metabolism on hold. That’s why I do NOT recommend any drinking when you are on a fat loss program (at least if you are serious about it).

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When you are on a regular, year-round lifestyle/maintenance program I recommend that if you drink, you do so in moderation, keep it to special occasions or weekends and remember to factor in those calories to your daily intake.

By the way, there’s a major risk to drinking every day – even just one or two – that most people don’t even think about:

Daily drinking is habit forming. Anything you do every day easily becomes a habit that is difficult to break later.

On the other hand, if you could establish the habit of eating 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables and getting some exercise every single day, those would be habits worth forming!

let me know how else I can help. This question comes up often, so I did cover alcohol and fat loss in much greater detail in chapter 13 of the Burn the Fat book: www.burnthefat.com

Alcohol And Body Fat
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

QUESTION: Dear Tom: I came across a piece of muscle-building advice written on a white board at a Bally’s fitness club, posted outside the “advanced” personal training station. I took a picture and attached it to this email. As you can see, it said to ingest whey protein and 60-70 grams of *simple sugars* 30-45 minutes after your workout.

Is there any truth at all to this advice? I take particular exception to point #1… I can’t believe eating 60-70 grams of simple sugar at any time can be good for you!

If this is indeed bad advice, I will write Bally’s corporate and tell them to stop hurting the public with bad advice from their personal trainers.

What do you think? thanks,

Doug

ANSWER: It does seem counter intuitive, but believe it or not, that is standard, and science-based advice for post workout nutrition.

Post workout nutrition has been well researched and there is evidence that taking in simple carbs – usually glucose or dextrose with maltodextrin (plus whey protein) in the form of a post workout drink – is an ideal post workout recovery “meal.”

The part about “waiting” 30-45 minutes is the part that is questionable, but that may have been a simple oversight… I think what they meant was to ingest it “within” 30-45 minutes.

Most of the research says that the sooner after the workout you take post workout nutrition, the better (which is why you see so many people these days chugging down workout drinks while still at the gym… in the locker room, etc.)

That said, here is where I will get controversial, because almost everything you read and everyone you talk to these days tries to convince you that if you’re not drinking a post workout shake, all the time, regardless of your goals, you are some kind of nut case with a “death wish” for muscle loss.

Post-workout nutrition is very important, no question about that.

The debatable part is whether it’s a must to get it in the form of liquid sugar or simple carbs + whey and especially when your goal is maximum fat loss.

After reviewing the research and taking into account real world results (on myself and my clients), my opinion is that a large whole food meal does the job just fine, especially in the context of a 6 meals a day bodybuilding style nutrition program.

I think you could use whole food or a drink and get great results either way.

How you approach post-workout nutrition is going to depend a lot on what your goal is at any given time. If your goal is gaining muscle mass or maximizing endurance training or sports performance, you might approach it differently than if you were on a strict fat-loss program (such as preparing for a fitness or bodybuilding competition).

On a muscle growth program, I would say it’s a great idea to take advantage of the commercial post-workout drinks available to you because it’s hard to eat enough calories to gain lean body weight.

Among a list of other benefits like increased protein synthesis, decreased exercise-induced cortisol, glycogen replenishment, and improved recovery, post workout drinks provide a convenient and easy way to get more calories and that indeed may help muscle growth.

On endurance programs, recovering from workouts and keeping glycogen stores topped off are important objectives, so again a post workout drink with plenty of carbs – yes, the simple variety – is beneficial.

Where I suggest caution is when you’re shifting gears from muscle gain into fat loss.

My personal preference is to continue focusing on the importance of a good post workout meal, but to take my post workout nutrition in the form of solid food with the same complex and natural carbs I eat in all my other meals.

A nutrition and training principle you should always live by is:

“Don’t compromise your primary objective.”

If your primary objective is fat loss, I can’t see taking in a large amount of pure sugar post-workout as a good strategy to maximize your fat loss. It might assist muscle growth, enhance recovery, or help restore your glycogen, but it won’t enhance your fat loss.

Keep in mind, however, that you’re very unlikely to store calories consumed after intense training as body fat, because your muscles are “hungry” and like sponges for soaking up carbs and protein after the workout, so you don’t need to worry about that.

But I can tell you from personal experience as a competitive bodybuilder and fat loss coach that you will almost always get leaner, faster with whole food (especially people with an endomorph body type who are carb sensitive).

This is probably due to the thermogenic nature of whole food and the obvious fact that refined sugar is simply not fat loss food.

Because post workout nutrition is so important and because commercial post workout drinks can be so beneficial in so many ways, one way to tackle this fat loss issue if you’re already using a drink, is to leave your post workout drink in during the early stages of your fat loss program and then if your fat loss slows down or you plateau, the drink is the first thing to get cut as you make your fat lossDiet stricter.

As always, adjust your approach NOT by the information you read in the magazines or by the conventional wisdom you hear in the gym, but by the actual results you are getting in the real world.

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Also remember that you must adjust your approach according to your goals and slant everything towards achieving your primary objective with maximum efficiency.

You can learn more about nutrition techniques that are designed specifically to maximize fat loss in the Burn The Fat program: www.burnthefat.com

Post Workout Drinks And fat Loss
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review

QUESTION: Hi Tom: Your Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle ebook was an eye-opener for me. I am following your advice closely with very good results. I’m a semi professional windsurfer and a mountain biker, and especially for the latter I need to be as lean as possible. Thanks in large part to your program, I’m well into single digit body fat and dropping. Just recently I came across a book called the paleolithic diet and I was wondering if you ever heard about it? What’s your opinion on this book? Is it worth reading if I already have your book? Is the program any good?

Mariusz
Poland

ANSWER: The “paleolithic,” “stone age,” “cave man,” or “neanderthal” eating plans have been around for a while and there are quite a few books that have been written on the subject.

In general, with a only few minor constructive criticisms, I think they are right on point, and will benefit your health and definitely your fat loss efforts.

A “Paleo Diet” is actually quite similar to my Burn The Fat program, only with the starches and grains (and dairy products) removed completely.

In fact, a “paleo” or “cave man” diet is very, very similar to the “contest” (bodybuilding or physique) diets I recommend in Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle and this is most definitely a great way get very lean, very fast.

On physique competition diets (bodybuilding, fitness, figure, etc), you leave the lean proteins, lean meats, nuts and seeds, the green veggies (fibrous carbs), and some fruit in the diet, while reducing or removing ALL processed foods and SOME of the grains and starches. (usually the dairy products go too).

When it comes to MAXIMUM FAT LOSS, the removal or reduction of grains and calorie dense starchy carbs in favor of lean protein and veggies will definitely help speed the process – even if that’s only because it reduces caloric density of the food intake, although there are other reasons.

Lean protein (fish and meat) + good fats & nuts + lots of green veggies + some fruit = LEAN!

And thats basically what the “paleolithic” diets recommend, because the principle there is to eat like our “stone age” ancestors did – before there was McDonalds, Coca Cola and other junk food.

The premise is that since our genetic code (the human genome) has changed less than 0.02 percent in 40,000 years, this means that our bodies are still expecting to get the same foods and nutrition they were getting 40,000 years ago.

By eating what our “stone age” hunter and gatherer ancestors ate, say the paleo diets, we will rid ourselves of the health problems and the obesity problem that has only recently begun to plague us as a result of modern lifestyle and processed manmade foods.

Forty thousand years ago, you had to eat nature-made food. There was no food in cans, boxes or packages was there? The packaging was peel, a skin or a shell!

There were no TV dinners. There was no drive in fast food. There were no convenience stores.

There was no corn syrup. There was no white sugar. There were no hydrogenated oils. No chemicals. No preservatives. No artificial anything.

There was only what could be hunted and gathered: Meat, fish, nuts, seeds, plants, vegetables, fruits.

My only real constructive criticism is that some of these programs not only recommend removal of all grains and starches (and even dairy), they outright condemn them – sometimes unfairly, I believe.

They say that agriculture arrived on the scence only 10,000 years ago so foods produced as a result of agriculture should also be on the “banned” list and that includes 100% whole grain products and even rice, potatoes and other starches which are not manmade.

The truth is there are some starchy carbohydrates and grains which are very minimally processed or completely unproceseed (the only processing being cooking).

Also, some people can metabolically handle starches and grains just fine, while others cannot. The same can be said for dairy products.

This is known as metabolic individuality. Because this individuality exists from person to person, I don’t believe it’s necessary to recommend that “EVERYONE” cut out “ALL” the starches and grains “ALL” the time.

I do believe that many people are getting an overdose of refined carbs and sugar and that moderating intake of concentrated carbs almost always accelerates fat loss.

However, the nutrition program you choose should depend on your metabolic/body type, your current body composition and state of health as well as your goals (maximum fat loss vs. muscle growth vs. maintenance, vs. endurance athleticperformance).

I don’t believe that “agriculture” and everything that came with it is “evil.”

I believe that highly processed and refined and packaged foods are the “nutritional evils” we should be aware of.

To remove brown rice, 100% whole grains, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, legumes and so on for healthy carb tolerant people, especially those who are highly active and or already at a normal body fat level doesnt make a lot of sense to me.

In particular, for athletes with a high energy expenditure, eating the concentrated complex, starchy carbs and grains – from natural sources – can be quite important.

Sure, there are some “renegade’ nutritionists who prescribe high fat diets for endurance athletes and claim that will provide high energy and high performance, but that is controversial.

Also, an explanation for athletes successful on such plans may be that they are metabolically suited for more fat and protein to begin with, so that conclusion shouldn’t be generalized to everyone.

Thats the trouble with so many programs — the creators might say, “It worked for me and for some of my clients, so this is the way EVERYONE should do it.”

Everyone is different, so the true inquiring minds will inquire about what is best for THEM, not the other guy… In the case of highly active healthy people and athletes, I would lean towards a decent amount of natural carbs forperformance goals (and pull back on starches and grains when goals change to maximum fat loss).

The key word here is NATURAL!

There is a HUGE difference between natural starches and grains and refined starches and grains.

For example, look at old fashioned unsweetened oatmeal versus sugary, white flour cereal grains. How can you throw those together into the same category??? They are no where near the same, but often they get lumped together by those who are adamantly “no-grain” or “no-cereal” allowed.

What about sweet potatoes? why cut something like that out of your diet? They are not processed or man made at all are they?

Aside from that minor quibble I have with some of these programs being too strict with their “Absolutely no grains or starch allowed,” there is a lot anyone can learn from the “paleolithic” eating concept.

The questions raised from these programs and books are good ones:

“What were we eating tens of thousands of years ago?”

“What are we genetically and environmentally predisposed to eat?”

“what has gone wrong with the modern day diet that has led to so much disease and obesity which didn’t exist thousands of years ago?”

I believe that too many people get caught up in low fats or low carbs or whatever the trend of the month is, but the real source of our problem is neither fat nor carbs, it is an excess of processed, refined man-made food! (combined with a serious shortage of exercise)

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If you study and understand the concept of eating according to your personal goals and your unique body/metabolic type first, which I discuss in chapter 5 of my book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, then I believe you will get even more benefit from the further study of the “paleo” eating concept, as you will be informed and flexible enough to adapt it to your personal situation.

Loren Cordain and Ray Audette have written two of the more notable works on the subject (the Paleo diet and Neanderthin). You can get either of these at almost any bookstore or Amazon.com. You can get my Burn The Fat program at www.burnthefat.com

ANY good nutrition program – for health or for fat loss – is going to be focused on natural foods and it will teach you how to get the processed food OUT and the natural food IN

When you analyze ANY diet or nutrition program, keep in mind what ageless Fitness Icon Jack Lalanne has always said,

“If man made it, dont eat it!”

THAT is the essence of eating how we’re supposed to eat!

The Paleolithic Diet – Should We Eat Like Our “Cave Man” Ancestors?
By Tom Venuto, Author Of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.burnthefat.com

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Review